IN my last letter, Johnson, I talked about Boris the Gub and also Iran's veiled threats, not about taking British prisoners , they have already got them. Also its threats against the west.

There were prisoners on exercise at Barry Buddon, the enemy was the SAS, two came in a Land Rover dressed like us, Red Hackles and all.

They told the two numpties 'morning the Gimpy (the general purpose machine gun) was faulty' and took it away reducing our fire power.

The company commander went nuts and sent for us, Corporal Bishop and Private Hodge, and said 'you are karate men'. Your now the natch squad, go get one of these SAS guys. At dusk we caught one, a little skinny guy with a sub machine gun. I jumped him , disarming him and sweeping his legs. Bobby dived on top of him and said, 'move and I will bite your face off'. The poor guy was terrified.

We got him back to the common post and we were told to wait outside. He refused to answer questions so the commander shouted for us. The guy said: "No wait I'll tell you , just keep these two away!"

Next time, at Drif Camp (well named) at Stirling, Bobby wasn't there. We went out at night three of them were in a trench. I was told to get one , we will create a diversion. Well no time for fancy stuff, it was crash bang! When we got him back I took the bag off his head and he said, 'you broke my jaw'. It wasn't, we both worked at the same pit.

Now, real karate involved blunt force trauma, using various hand and foot techniques to the vital points of the head, body and nervous system. Would not have gone down well with the Geneva Convention as we started to use sleeper holds as we were both trained in Ju-Jitsu as well.

Sleeper holds are non lethal unless left on indefinitely as opposed to choke holds which are lethal. Police Scotland take note.

We went out at night and you had to wait half an hour to acquire night vision.

These were some of the amusing encounters of around 50, but this last one was more serious. As part of a NATO exercise we were high up in a forest on the East German border before the fall of the Berlin Wall and before the end of the end of the Cold War.

The Russians were conducting their own exercise over the border.

We went looking for prisoners. We were told to watch. Remember the Abba song, 'Watching Me Watching You'!

Two guys came up through the forest marking trees, supposed to be forestry workers.

I have seen the manual worker all my life. When did you see a manual worker 30 or 40 years ago dressed identically in spotless clothes?

I sat up, Bobby wasn't there, he was injured.

One of them stumbled and said' Ngit'. I speak Japanese, German and some Russian, Ngit is the Russian word for No. The German one for No is 'Nein'.

We detained them at gunpoint (live ammo this time) and the Military Police took them away as spies. They weren't very good. Ironically I now have Russian friends. Stana Raza.

BILL BISHOP,

Ballingry.